About ConeColor Pro High Density Blacks

We now have an optional Matte Black and an optional Photo Black that are exceptionally dark.

These two new ink options are quite extraordinary because they have bettered the best of the OEMs. You can use these two optional blacks to upgrade your current system. With the new HD Photo Black you'll experience better gloss and deeper dMax. It fits right into your current workflow. Walker Blackwell formulated this special Photo Black to be exceptionally dark but to act normally like a regular Photo Black where it is near dark to where it trails off during printing. No special ICC profiling required.

The new Ultra HD™ Matte Black is another story altogether. The technology to make carbon darker and darker has been gaining interest in science, aerospace, defense and other types of research. But, making ink out of exceptionally dark carbon matter is quite difficult and expensive. Ultra HD™ is exceptionally dark. It produces prints which are darker than any other ink set by any OEM or third party. This is threshold that you can step across, but you will want to produce ICC profiles. We have begun to produce new ICC libraries with ConeColor Pro and the Ultra HD™ matte black option. But, it's time consuming. You can either wait for our library or jump right in and produce your own.

How to upgrade or buy the new ConeColor Pro HD Black inks

We are offering the new blacks in complete sets of inks and cartridges calling these sets "HD Enhanced" ink sets, so that you have the option of buying a regular set or an HD Enhanced set for your legacy printer. You can find these legacy sets in ConeColor K3, K3V, and HDR ink sets that are HD Enhanced.

We are also offering sets of 8 inks which are either HD PK "enhanced" or Ultra HD™ MK enhanced. These are perfect for those who use only MK or PK in their printing.

We are offering the new blacks as upgrades to existing ConeColor Pro customers by offering them independently as bottles or in combinations of bottle and cartridge.

We are offering the new blacks as "standard blacks" in the ConeColor Pro HD and HDX ink sets. Although the HD and HDX sets are designed for Epson SureColor P printers, these P printers are locked in the USA against use with 3rd party carts. The same printers are not locked in Europe and Asia. You can read more about that here. The basics are that refillable cartridges can only be installed temporarily in the USA versions. On the first chip reset the printer will permanently lock out the user. There is no work-around and none expected. Incidentally, the new Ultra HD™ Matte Black is significantly darker than the latest Epson HD Black for the SureColor printer. If you are in Europe or Asia, our new Ultra HD™ can give you an additional stop darker blacks for your photographs.

ConeColor Pro Ultra HD™ Matte Black

This is the bomb! The new ConeColor Pro Matte Black was formulated by Vermont PhotoInkjet in October of 2016 using a new generation of extremely-dark-mass carbon pigment. This classification of carbon pigment has never been used in a piezo inkjet formulation. It offers exceptionally dense dMax. In comparison to the new HD Matte Black of the Epson SureColor P printers, ConeColor Pro Ultra HD™ is significantly darker. It is one of the most expensive inkjet formulations ever attempted. We do not expect that Canon, Epson nor HP can afford to offer such a dark matte black ink.

What you can expect by using this upgrade to your printer is exceptionally dark dMax in matte prints. The dMax puts a legacy model Epson printer into a class even greater than that of the latest Epson printers.

In order to compare the new ConeColor Pro Ultra HD™ MK and Epson SureColor HD MK inks, we measured them after printing and drying a single channel of ink using the same printer and the same standard settings in QTR Calibration mode.

QTR Calibration mode permits printing a single channel of ink. This way we compared apples to apples, or carbon to carbon.

By comparison, Epson's newest SureColor P-800 HD Matte Black produces a dMax of only 1.74 on the same papers.

If you know your dMax - that's a WOW!

Old MK on top vs Ultra HD™
on the bottom

But, when we compared it to the Epson legacy MK used in Epson Photo and Pro printers from the Pro 9900 and back, Epson MK measured only 1.63 which is similar to our regular ConeColor Pro MK.

Putting Ultra HD™ in a SureColor P-800 would be a dramatic increase over Epson's HD MK.

However, putting Ultra HD™ into a legacy printer would breath all kinds of potential into it.

The dMax increase is so dramatic that it clearly requires producing custom ICC printer profiles in order to take advantage of the increased shadow color gamut.

Having a huge amount of dMax is not just to make gigantic blacks, but also to expand the entire dynamic range of available colors.

InkjetMall is offering this new Ultra HD™ Matte Black ink as an upgrade to older Epson printer models such as the Epson R2400, R2880, R3000, Pro 3800, 3880, 4000, 4800, 4880, 4900, 7600, 7800, 7880, 7890, 7900, 9600, 9800, 9880, 9890, 9900. It is designed for use in Epson SureColor P printers such as the P-600, P-800, P-5000, P-6000, P-7000, P-8000, and P-9000. However, the P-800 and larger printers have been locked against use with 3rd party carts in North America. 3rd party carts can be temporarily used until the first auto-reset at which time the user of these printers will be permanently locked out of ever using 3rd party carts again. We are providing these inks only into European and Asian models of these printers which do not have this firmware installed. If you are considering upgrading your printer to one of these new models, you can import one from Europe or Asia and utilize a 115v to 240v voltage transformer.

We do recommend that you consider to perform custom ICC profiles when using such a dark matte black ink in order to open and greatly expand the shadow color gamut of your work.

ConeColor Pro HD-PK

This new ConeColor Pro Photo Black was formulated by Walker Blackwell at Vermont PhotoInkjet in June of 2016. It has been designed to offer exceptional dMax and glossiness. It is originally designed to match the new Epson SureColor HDPK black ink. InkjetMall is offering this new Photo Black ink as an upgrade to older Epson printer models such as the Epson R2400, R2880, R3000, Pro 3800, 3880, 4000, 4800, 4880, 4900, 7600, 7800, 7880, 7890, 7900, 9600, 9800, 9880, 9890, 9900.

By upgrading the Photo Black, a significantly higher dMax and glossiness is achieved than when using Epson's ink sets for these printer models. The user of our HD-PK benefits with more dramatic blacks in their glossy prints (which is the number one selling point of the new SureColor P printers), without the expense of buying a new SureColor P printer.

How to upgrade or buy the new ConeColor Pro HD Black inks

We are offering the new blacks in complete sets of inks and cartridges calling these sets "HD Enhanced" ink sets, so that you have the option of buying a regular set or an HD Enhanced set for your legacy printer. You can find these legacy sets in ConeColor K3, K3V, and HDR ink sets that are HD Enhanced.

We are offering the new blacks as "standard blacks" in the ConeColor Pro HD and HDX ink sets. Although the HD and HDX sets are designed for Epson SureColor P printers and these P printers are locked in the USA against use with 3rd party carts. The same printers are not locked in Europe and Asia. Refillable cartridges can only be installed temporarily in the USA version. On the first chip reset the printer will permanently lock out the user.

We are offering them as upgrades to existing ConeColor Pro customers by offering them independently as bottles or in combinations of bottle and cartridge.

Best way to install ConeColor Pro Ultra HD™ MK and HD-PK

You should not pour these new black inks into a cartridge that currently contains our regular black inks. Use a fresh cartridge. These new black inks are fully compatible with both Epson and ConeColor Pro inks and you can allow it to slowly work its way through the long ink lines into the ink exchanger and finally through the print head. You will probably have to print many prints before you see the change.

If you wish to make an immediate change, you can run the INITIAL FILL procedure. The INITIAL FILL procedure empties all of the ink in the printer's ink lines, ink exchanger and print head in about 7-8 minutes. It will empty the ink from all of the channels and replace it with whatever ink cartridges are installed in the printer. There is not a way to use the INTIAL FILL for a single channel. This is the same procedure we recommend for introducing PiezoFlush into the printer to clean clogs that exist inside the print head, rather than on the surface of the print head.

Perform an Initial Fill/Ink Charge Cycle, thru the printer control panel (or the Adjustment Program, depending on your printer model) by following the instructions on our technical support site here.

You may have noticed that these inks are expensive

They are expensive to produce. The Ultra HD™ may be the most expensive formulation ever attempted for non-scientific research.

You may have noticed that these inks are similar to the Piezography Pro Ultra HD MK and the Piezography Pro High Density Photo Black.